Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~ - Chapter 2: Black Ink's Familiar

Chapter 2: Black Ink’s Familiar

My memories start from my third birthday.

Even back then, I had memories I didn’t know.

Memories of living in some distant place and probably dying there. The so-called reincarnation thing.

And the world I was born into was completely different from the one in my memories.

Outside the mansion’s window. Beyond the small town stretched endless green.

In the sky above, there was the figure of a huge lizard-like creature gliding with its membrane-stretched arms spread wide.

“Oh, can you see it, Haro! It’s a wyvern!”

Even though it’s a sub-dragon, the first creature I can show to you who’s turned three is a “dragon”—that’s good luck, isn’t it—

I must have looked up at my father in this life, who said that and laughed loudly, with a blank face.

This was a world of swords and magic, heroes and demon kings.

Swing a staff and fireballs fly around, and wyverns flap in the sky.

At first I was surprised, but I was happy. Because it was the world my previous self had yearned for.

But that soon turned to despair.

“N-No magic power… What is this, Haro! You’re a direct descendant of the noble Moskaneyra!”

I think something like that was said.

At first he was a good father. But the moment he learned his son had no magic power, he lost his composure.

He breathed roughly as if deranged and grabbed the child’s shoulders, shaking them.

“Tch, there’s still a no-magic-power one, huh. There’s nothing you can do for this house, so get out already!”

This one is the mean older brother.

Even though he’s young, he’s a bit obese, so I’m a little worried about his health.

But fortunately, the brother had magic power.

If the eldest son who inherits the house had no magic power, the Moskaneyra family’s honor would really hit rock bottom.

I truly thought it was good that I was the second son.

Well, that’s how it was, and I was quickly pushed into the shadows—

—but there’s no way I could give up.

It’s magic.

The dream I yearned for is right in front of me.

No way I’d give up on this for a silly reason like not having magic power.

The small tower I was pushed to seemed to have been used like a warehouse in the past, and there were several usable antiques scattered around.

Any old book could become a textbook. Empty potion bottles served as test tubes.

It was around the time when less than ten years had passed, repeating only reading and experiments alone.

I met the sisters.

*

Lately, monsters had been coming from deep in the forest often.

It’s rare near human settlements, but this time it was an even rarer troll. A monster I’d only seen in picture books.

It was the first opponent this huge, but I defeated it safely.

When I turned around, the two were dumbfounded.

Over a crisp clean shirt, a thin robe—the same outfit on women.

The red one had a bit strong tone, the blue one the opposite, no inflection.

But both had refined looks, slender long bodies, snow-like skin, very similar doll-like faces… well, I could tell they definitely had blood flowing.

While I observed them like that, the red one suddenly stepped forward and gripped my hand tightly over her leather glove.

“—It’s you! You wrote the thesis!”

“Huh?”

What the sudden.

What thesis are you talking about.

“Your brother put out the thesis! The real researcher of that experiment… Ah, no. Not that, first, um!”

“Zaria, thanks first.”

“Right! Thank you!”

“Me too. Thank you.”

Ah, yes.

The red one who grabbed me and the blue one watching from a step back both said that. They’re kids who can say thanks.

“…So, what about the thesis?”

“R-Really no idea? Your brother presented it at the academy. ‘The Influence of the Morphological Characteristics of Magic Power on the Land’ or something.”

The red one continued.

“We came all this way to hear more details, but that guy couldn’t explain the thesis he was supposed to have written at all!”

“So we thought it was a presentation to add prestige to the heir, and the real researcher is someone else.”

“Ah, aah…”

I see, that’s what it was.

Indeed, I’d tried a similar experiment before. I looked at the small tower standing behind the two.

I don’t remember entrusting the research to my brother, but I should have left all the summary memo papers inside the tower. In that case—

“…Brother, did you steal it on your own?”

Took it without permission and used it on his own.

Well, probably something like that. I’m not doing it for honor anyway, so whatever.

But the sisters seemed different, and when I acknowledged it, she raised her voice, “As expected!?”

“The worst~! If it was with agreement, fine, but actual plagiarism!?”

“So you really did the research. Amazing, and younger than us.”

The irritated-looking red one—Zaria, I think she was called.

While pursing her pretty lips, the grip on my one hand tightened.

Meanwhile, the blue one who was a step back—she also closed the distance and gripped my other free hand.

“Hey, that earlier thing. Did you develop that too?”

“That…?”

“The magic using the slime. I don’t think it turns like that just with Summoning Water Call.”

“R-Right! How, without magic power!?”

To their question, when I muttered “Ah, Ink,” their gazes went to my waist—to the inside of the potion bottle hanging from my belt.

There, my experimental slime “Ink” was quietly contained.

“Ink, that black slime?”

“Yeah. It turned out like this after mixing various chemicals and stuff.”

“Whoa, no wonder I thought it had a weird color! But no magic power means you can’t use contract magic, right? How on earth?”

The two, looking very interested.

I hesitated on how to explain. Maybe it’s faster to show. I rolled up the cuff of my right hand, which was tightly gripped by Zaria, by biting it with my mouth.

When the countless tattoo-like ink marks densely carved on my arm’s surface were exposed, the two widened their eyes in shock.

“Wah!?”

“W-What is this…?”

“Magic engravings. Some places have magic circles carved, some have magic formulas. The rest are extensions and connections of circuits.”

Zaria released the gripped hand and cautiously removed the glove from my right hand. Naturally, there too, from the back of the hand to the fingertips, similar tattoos were densely carved.

“F-For real? You did this yourself…?”

“Yeah. The material is Ink’s bodily fluid. I carved until the boundary became ambiguous, and first, I made it recognize me as the same species. Slimes split from the same individual don’t cannibalize each other.”

To the two who were speechless, I continued.

“After that, I taught it to form magic circles—”

“Learning? Slimes shouldn’t have intelligence.”

“Yeah, well, no brain. But it moves autonomously. That means it has computational functions for action besides the brain, right?”

For example, slimes spread their bodies to swallow large things.

In other words, it can do conditional reflex-like shape adjustments.

Using that, I make it remember the shape of magic circles.

As the blue girl said, strictly speaking, this isn’t learning by intelligence—

“—To put it simply, I think it’s like the shape memory effect that alloys have, but highly advanced, complex, and autonomized, but well, I’ll skip that for now.”

“…????”

Splendid question marks floated above the two’s heads.

“O-Okay, question—!”

“Yes, the red one.”

“Putting aside how you tamed the slime for now, what about Summoning Water Call? And the magic circle was something I’d never seen!”

To Zaria who raised her hand straight and asked, I answered.

“Summoning Water Call is a technique to prepare the foundation for magic in water. So that was Ink preparing the foundation in Ink’s own body. Slimes are creatures whose whole body is like a lump of magic, so with Summoning Water Call, its performance improves dramatically, speed and hardness too. The magic circle is a combination of Summoning Water Call and transformation command—”

“W-Wait, I can’t keep up with understanding!”

Zaria cut off my explanation that tended to get long.

“U-Um… To begin with, slimes can’t use magic, right? Since no intelligence.”

“Yeah, without thought, can’t use magic. So I connected the tattoos from the cervical vertebrae all the way to the nerves, transmitting thought to Ink. Ink misrecognizes me as itself, so it mistakes my thoughts as its own. As a result, magic is established.”

“…Huh?”

The two were stunned.

“Connecting to the brain…”

“H-How?”

“…………”

I didn’t answer the two’s words.

I thought I shouldn’t tell them. It’s gross.

…………

For a moment, the air became silent as we pushed quiet. The two stared at the magic formula engraved on the back of my hand with expressions like they couldn’t believe it.

Feeling a bit awkward, I looked at the two alternately.

“…Ah, come to think of it, I haven’t heard your names.”

“Za-Zaria Levi.”

“Likewise, Noiche Levi.”

—What?

I had heard those names before. Especially the family name. The prestigious magic noble house of Levi, distant relatives of the royal family—Duke Levi House.

Real great nobles that a country noble like me wouldn’t even be considered.

“…This is bad.”

I screwed up, I was casually using informal speech.

But at my stiffening, the two tilted their heads and denied.

“What? Worrying now? It’s fine, you seem better at desk learning than us.”

“We came seeking your knowledge. There’s no status difference beyond that here.”

“B-But, even so, dealing with duke house people—”

—To my words, Zaria interrupted with “Ah, if I’m using power to say one thing.”

“You, don’t stay in this awful place, come to our place starting today.”